蘇東坡 (Su Tungpo) 與 佛印和尚 (Monk Foyin)

In his 427-page The Gay Genius, Lin Yutang only mentioned Monk Foyin (佛印和尚) in pages 151-3.  His name was also mentioned on two other pages.  We read,

“Many of the stories of clever repartee between Su Tungpo and Foyin were based on puns and are untranslatable.  There is, however, the following.”

Our friend, Charles, mentioned an interesting story that was not seen in the book.  There is no way that Lin can translate 「八風吹不動，一屁過江來」for his English/American readers.

話說，東坡有一位朋友名端卿，是他的莫逆之交，也是一位飽學之士，學問不下於東坡，他們在一起的時候，除了互相研討學問外，常常互相調皮、開玩笑、悪作劇。有一年因為陰陽差錯，端卿在不得已之下刺度為僧，宋神宗𧶽他僧名佛印，史稱佛印和尚。Lin told a somewhat similar story.

“Foyin had never intended to be a monk.  Furthermore, he came from a wealthy family.  According to one curious story, he was born of the same mother as Leeding ().  Apparently the mother was a loose character and had married three times, having three sons by three different husbands—quite a record in those days.  When the Emperor gave an audience to Buddhist believers as a gesture toward Buddhism, Su Tungpo presented this man [端卿] at court.  Foyin [端卿] tried to impress the Emperor with his ardent conviction in the Buddhist faith.  The Emperor looked at him and saw a tall, handsome man with an unusual face and graciously said that he would be glad to give a monetary grant,  the so-called tutieh, to endow him in a monastery if he would join the church.  Finding himself in a quandary, he could not but accept the Emperor’s suggestion, and thus he had to enter a religious order.  When he was living in Hangchow, legend says he used to travel with a whole retinue of servants and pack mules, in a far from ascetic way of life.”

Lin also wrote,

“These stories always show the monk as outwitting the poet.  I have a suspicion that Foyin himself was the author of the stories.”

The story Charles mentioned also shows Foyin was at the upper hand and at the expense of Su Tungpo.  I copy Charles’ story here so you can enjoy it.

蘇東坡與佛印和尚。

蘇東坡同時是一位很風趣的人，我想這是幽默大師林語堂那麼喜歡他的原因，以至於後來用英文寫下了一部《蘇東坡傳》《The Gay Genius ,The Life and Time of Su Tongpo》。

話說，東坡有一位朋友名端卿，是他的莫逆之交，也是一位飽學之士，學問不下於東坡，他們在一起的時候，除了互相研討學問外，常常互相調皮、開玩笑、悪作劇。有一年因為陰陽差錯，端卿在不得已之下刺度為僧，宋神宗𧶽他僧名佛印，史稱佛印和尚。佛印佛學精深，因為是半途出家，六根不靜，喝酒不吃素，是一位酒肉和尚。當東坡被放遂黃州時，佛印掌廟寺於黃州對岸的𠫂山，所以常常互通往來。有一次，東坡硏習佛書，心有所感，自認對佛學也有一套，寫下一首五言絶句：「䅲首天中天，毫光照大千，八風吹不動，端坐紫金蓮」。大意是說，我昂首看天上佛大無比的佛陀，他的目光照耀大千世界，我受佛陀的慈悲、修身養性頗有心得，我現在就像端坐在紫金蓮花上，人間的什麼事都不能騒動我的心志。東坡寫完，心中覺得飃飃然，躊躇滿志，馬上呌佣人把這首詩送到在對岸掌廟的佛印和尚，和印看完了詩，知道東坡要跟他挑戰他們對佛學硏究、修養的深淺，他暗笑了一下，隨批上「放屁」兩字，把原封信送回給東坡，同時吩附左右說，蘇東坡隔天大早就會來。蘇東坡看完了回信後，氣得五孔生煙，佛印不但沒有欣賞他的詩，反而批了「放屁」兩字。果然隔天大清早，蘇東坡黎明既起，怱怱的、氣呼呼的渡江要找和印和尙算帳。當他抵達歸宗寺時，執事僧說和印大清早出去了，並請東坡到方丈室休息，東坡走到方丈室，看到門口有一幅聯語：「八風吹不動，一屁過江來」。東坡看了，又生氣、又懊悔，自己以為佛學修養到家，可以「八風吹不動」，現在被和印和尚兩個字「放屁」，就被打過江來。東坡紅著臉，馬上轉頭，回去黃州。

這是有名「一屁過江來」蘇東坡的軼事

Su Tungpo: an incorrigible and hopeless optimist

Su Tungpo was an incorrigible and hopeless optimist.

Su Tungpo statue at Huichow

He was once convicted of disrespect of the Emperor through his poems, for which he was jailed for nearly five months.  There were many exiles in his life time. He was once exiled to Huichow; Chaoyun went with him.  He was contented and used all his saving to build a new house ready to settle down, then Chaoyun died before the house was completed.

Two months after the completion of the new house, “he had written two lines describing his beautiful nap in the spring wind, listening to the temple bells at the back of the house.”  When Chang Chun [the chief persecutor] read the verse, he remarked, ‘So! Tungpo is having a good time!’ Thereupon the order for the new exile was issued.”  This is how Su ended up exiling to the island of Hainan, outside the mainland of China.

“Bless are those who are deprived of the good things of this earth!  It was this type of humor that enabled Su Tungpo to be happy and contented wherever he was.  Later, when he was exiled outside China where no medicine and doctor was available, he told his friends, “When I think how many people at the capital are annually killed by doctors I must congratulate myself.”

Thomas Jefferson also didn’t have the confidence of the medical practice in his days.  While designing the curriculum for the University of Virginia he founded, he confined medical studies to theory only.  He called the medical practice “the charlatanism of the body,” as he called religion “the charlatanism of the mind.”

Voltaire also didn’t have kind words for the medical doctors, “Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.”

Chaoyun (朝雲) Wang: The other woman in Su Tungpo’s (蘇東坡, 蘇轍) life

Chaoyun (朝雲, morning cloud) Wang was a very important woman in Su Tungpo’s life, inspiring many exquisite poems even after her untimely death.

Chaoyun Wang died young presumably of malaria according to Lin Yutang.  “A devout Buddhist, she said a Buddhist gatha (verse) from the Diamond Sutra (金剛經) before she drew her last breath.”

A good friend sent me a Youtube of 蔣勳 talking about Su Tungpo (寂寞沙洲冷) in which he said Su Tungpo recited Diamond Sutra (金剛經) for Chaoyun as she was dying.  It doesn’t matter who read the Diamond Sutra; I guessed both read.

Su Tungpo statue in Hangchow

This reminds me of the scene when William Pitt (one of the greatest statesmen the British Empire ever produced) was dying; his son was reading to him from Homer the solemn scene of Hector’s funeral and the deep despair of Troy.

蔣勳’s talk about Su Tungpo (寂寞沙洲冷) is an excellent complement to the reading of Lin Yutang’s The Gay Genius; it is a bit over two hours; but it will be worth your while.

蔣勳：寂寞沙洲冷   https://youtu.be/XcE9_Q50FXE

Su Tungpo wrote three exquisite poems in praise of the two plum trees in the yard.  The plum flower blossomed a few months after Chaoyun died.  Seeing the white plum flowers in the glamor of the moonlight, dim and hazy in appearance, the other worldly beauty is that of Chaoyun, now lying in the grave, Su Tungpo was inspired to write the following poem in praise of the plum flower and Chaoyun.

玉骨那愁瘴霧，        Bones of jade, flesh of snow,

冰姿自有仙風。        May thy ethereal spirit stand unafraid,

海仙時遣探芳叢。    Though the dark mist and the swamp wind blow. May the sea sprites attend thee,

倒掛綠毛麼鳳。        The paroquets and cockatoos befriend thee.

素面翻嫌粉，            Thy white face doth powder spurn;

洗妝不褪唇紅。        Vermilion must yet from thy lips learn. (Flesh of snow, bones of jade,)

高情已逐曉雲空。    Dream thy dreams, peerless one.

不與梨花同夢。        Not for this world thou art made.

In his Youtube talk about Su Tungpo, 蔣勳 said Su Tungpo brought a courtesan home, saying she was an intelligent, gifted and accomplished courtesan, but that was not the case, according to Lin Yutang.  We read in The Gay Genius,

The Gay Genius

“There is no record that Su Tungpo became enamored of any of the courtesans [官妓].  He enjoyed the gay parties and ‘fooled around’ with women enough to be a ‘good fellow,’ not enough to take a mistress.”

“When Su Tungpo moved from Hungchow to Michow, his wife had bought a very intelligent maid of twelve, by the name of Chaoyun, who was to become most important in the life of Su Tungpo.

It was about this time that the poet took Chaoyun as his concubine.  Chaoyun, as we remember, was a maid of twelve when Mrs.Su bought her at Hangchow, and in the terminology of the Sung period, one could speak of her as “Mrs. Su’s concubine (chieh, 妾), although this would not make sense in English.  It was quite usual in ancient China for a wife’s maid to be promoted to the position of “concubine.”  Such a concubine was the wife’s assistant in every sense of the word, and for a wife who attended to her husband’s personal comforts, such as preparing him a bath, a conbubine had certain advantages over a maid in not having to avoid the husband’s presence.  Chaoyun had grown up now.  She was a remarkably intelligent girl, and admirers of the poet are inclined to glamorize her.  Some even write about her as if she had been an accomplished courtesan in Hangchow when Su Tungpo brought her into the family.  Careful research proves that this was not the case.  On the poet’s own testimony, Chaoyun learned to read and write only after coming into his house. Her popularity with Chinese admirers of the poet is deserved because it was she who followed him to his exile in his old age.”

Samuel Johnson is Chinese Su Tungpo (蘇東坡)

I am reading Lin Yutang’s The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tungpo (蘇東坡); the following is how Lin compared Su Tungpo to Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Lin Yutang

“It is natural, therefore, that the life of this man should be the center of literary gossip and honored with profound reverence, especially after his death.  For Western  analogies, Li Po may be compared to Shelley or Byron, a literary meteor that burned itself out in a short spectacular display. To Fu was like Milton, a devout philosopher and a good old man, writing in a profusion of apt, learned, and archaic metaphors. Su Tungpo (蘇東坡) was forever young,  He was a character more like Victor Hugo, and he had something of the exciting quality of Dr. Johnson.  Somehow Dr. John's gout is exciting to us even today, while Milton's blindness is not.  If Johnson were a Gainsborough at the same time, and also a Pope making criticism of current politics in verse, and if he had suffered like Swift, without the growing acidity of Swift, we would have an English parallel.  The human spirit in Su Tungpo was mellowed, not soured, by his many troubles, and we love him today because he suffered so much.”

When I read Lin’s comparing Li Po (李白) to Shelley or Byron and To Fu (or Du Fu 杜甫) to Milton, I knew Su Tungpo got to be Samuel Johnson and more, according to Lin.  Su was also a painter and calligraphist.

If you like Su Tungpo, you should fall in love with Samuel Johnson.  I checked out Johnson’s dictionary (published in 1755) from Carnegie Library many times. Johnson said “to make dictionary is dull work”; but reading his dictionary is never a dull moment.

I never got a chance to see/read Lin Yutang’s Chinese dictionary.

Splendor in the Grass (天涯何處無芳草)

Turner Classic Movies had Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty’s Splendor in the Grass tonight. The movie title is taken from the lines of William Wordsworth’s poem.

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind. . . . .

The Chinese name of the movie (天涯何處無芳草) matched or even outdid the original. It also came from a poem of Su Tungpo (蘇東坡)—the 11th century poet; one of the greatest poets in Chinese literary history.

花褪殘紅青杏小，

燕子飛時，綠水人家繞；

枝上柳綿吹又少，

天涯何處無芳草？

牆裡鞦韆牆外道，

牆外行人，牆裡佳人笑；

笑漸不聞聲漸悄，

多情卻被無情惱

---蘇東坡 蝶戀花---

(The following is my cousin, 陳英毅 , an ophthalmologist in Taiwan, commented on my Facebook page; quite a compliment; very kind of him.)

陳英毅 飽讀詩書，學貫中西，佩服！

Jer-Yuan Tsai; "飽讀詩書，學貫中西，佩服!"; 見笑, 見笑, 雖讀了不少, 但很多也都是點到而已. I like Natalie Wood. Her mysterious and tragic death about 20 years ago still puzzles many to this day; the yacht from which she fell off and drowned bore the name of “Splendor”.